Yasawa-i-Rara

In the morning I spent some more time on our errant bilge pump. It was even going off when I had it cleaned, reconnected and sitting in dry air. Having exhausted all the unlikely options I switched out the pump with another spare. Immediately, the new one behaved better. Before reinstalling the new pump I removed and cleaned out the old one way valve. I left testing the new setup until we had sailed just in case we had a return of the shaft seal leak which would give us a decent test.

Leaving at around 11am to get the best light for spotting reefs we had a great sail to Yasawa-i-Rara at the north end of Yasawa Island. We had around 15 knots of wind all the way sailing close hauled for most of the trip. We had to tack a few times to make it into the village. Along the way we managed to get one fish on the line but it escaped before we could even begin to bring it in. I will sharpen the hook.

Our anchorage was in 15-20 feet of sand giving us a wonderful turquoise bay all to ourselves. We went ashore and gave sevusevu to the headman. While there we mentioned we had no fresh fruit left. He dashed off and brought us back a bucket of papaya which we agreed to give him F$4 for.

Back on the boat I turned my attention back to the new bilge pump. A couple of buckets of sea water in the bilge convinced me the new pump is working fine. The bilge hasn’t refilled and the pump hasn’t gone off overnight so we should be good again. I’ll now have to figure out a warranty return on the old pump.

Today the winds have picked up making us wonder what we may do today. We’ve more or less settled on the idea of sailing back down to the Blue Lagoon tomorrow as it’s Helen’s birthday then and we can go out for a meal. Looking further ahead the weather looks a little poor so we need to find somewhere with good all round shelter. The Blue Lagoon should do.